1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink composition for ink jet recording and an image forming method using the same.
2. Background Art
Ink jet recording methods are classified into static electricity-driven ejection, air pressure-driven ejection, thermal bubble formation-driven ejection, piezoelectric device deformation-driven ejection and the like. In the ink jet recording methods, basically, ink droplets are generated and deposited onto a recording sheet to form an image.
Inks used in the ink jet recording are required to have properties including that the ink does not undergo any change in properties during storage, does not clog nozzles of the print head, does not yield an unacceptable image due to color-to-color intermixing (hereinafter referred to as "color bleeding") in an area where inks of different colors are superimposed on top of each other or one another, can yield a high-density image, and can yield an image possessing abrasion resistance, lightfastness, and waterfastness. Although water-soluble dyes have been mainly used as colorants for the ink in the above methods, use of inks using pigments has been proposed from the viewpoint of improving the lightfastness and the waterfastness of the image.
A number of proposals have been made on the formation of high-quality images not only by improving ink compositions but also by improving properties of recording media, such as ink absorption. Such recording media have been put on the market and widely used in the art. In most of these recording media, a layer comprising a water-soluble resin is provided on a substrate, and an ink is absorbed into the layer comprising a water-soluble resin to form an image.